August 2022 Public Humanities Newsletter
A monthly newsletter from Humanities for All, an initiative of the National Humanities Alliance.
In this newsletter:
August Spotlight: Scholarly Societies, Academic Journals, and Public Humanities Responses to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to our Substack (for free!) so that you receive the newsletter in your email inbox and don’t miss any news in the future. We also encourage you to submit items to share. If you have any questions or would like to connect about the newsletter please email Humanities for All project director Michelle May-Curry (mmaycurry@nhalliance.org).
Interested in contributing to the Humanities for All blog?
We are currently soliciting short posts that highlight public humanities initiatives and projects for publication in summer and fall 2022. Pitch a blog post to us here.
Calls for Proposals
NEH Public Humanities Projects
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Public Programs is accepting applications for the Public Humanities Projects program. The purpose of this program is to support projects that bring the ideas and insights of the humanities to life for general audiences through in-person, hybrid, or virtual programming outside of the classroom. Final applications due August 10, 2022.
Modern Language Association Public Humanities Incubator
Applications are now being accepted for the inaugural MLA Public Humanities Incubator. Current graduate students with an interest in contributing to public humanities scholarship are invited to submit applications. Twelve participants will be selected and placed in teams of four with mentors who are active in the public humanities. From October to December teams will work with their mentors to envision their research as contributions to public humanities scholarship: imagining audiences and impact, form and dissemination, collaboration and partnerships, and project life cycle. Public Humanities Incubator participants and their mentors will present their projects at the 2023 MLA convention in San Francisco. Learn more and apply by September 1, 2022 here.
Library of Congress Connecting Communities Digital Initiative
The Library of Congress invites applications for grants offered via its Connecting Communities Digital Initiative, which encourages creators in Black, Indigenous, and communities of color to combine Library materials with technology to connect Americans with a more expansive understanding of our past and future. Grants of up to $50,000 each are available to minority-serving higher education institutions, libraries, archives, and museums. Learn more and apply by September 30, 2022 here.
The Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship
The Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship program is designed to support emerging scholars as they advance bold and innovative research in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. The program is made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation and will make awards to doctoral students who show promise of leading their fields in important new directions. The fellowships are designed to intervene at the formative stage of dissertation development, before writing is advanced, and provide time and support for emerging scholars’ innovative approaches to dissertation research—practical, trans- or interdisciplinary, collaborative, critical, or methodological. The program seeks to expand the range of research methodologies, formats, and areas of inquiry traditionally considered suitable for the dissertation, including publicly engaged humanities elements, with a particular focus on supporting scholars who can build a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable academy. Learn more and apply by November 2, 2022 here.
Upcoming events
Imagining America National Gathering
October 14–16, 2022 | New Orleans, Louisiana
Organized in partnership with Tulane University, the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, and a local steering committee, Imagining America’s 2022 National Gathering will be held in person on October 14 -16, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year's theme of Rituals of Repair and Renewal invites participants to engage in joyful celebration of the magic in being together. Taking place in New Orleans, this event convenes artists, scholars, and culture bearers from across the country for three days of learning, sharing, and experiencing “Rituals of Repair and Renewal.” This year the gathering will feature a “track” for engaged graduate scholarship in the arts, design, and humanities. Register at the early bird price before September 2, 2022.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation PastForward National Preservation Virtual Conference
November 1–4, 2022 | Virtual
The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s PastForward National Preservation Virtual Conference is the nation’s premier conference for those who work to save, sustain, and interpret historic places. The conference events will explore three themes: “Historic Preservation is Climate Action,” “Encouraging Inclusion and Diversity Through Preservation,” and “Understanding Preservation’s Role in Real Estate Development.” Learn more and register here.
National Humanities Conference
November 10–13, 2022 | Los Angeles, California
This year’s National Humanities Conference will take place in Los Angeles, California from November 10–13 in collaboration with California Humanities. Co-hosted by the National Humanities Alliance and the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the National Humanities Conference brings together representatives from colleges, universities, state humanities councils, cultural institutions, and other community-based organizations to explore approaches to deepening the public’s engagement with the humanities. Visit the event page to learn more. Registration will launch later this summer.
August Spotlight
Scholarly Societies, Academic Journals, and Public Humanities Responses to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
With the goal of reaching policy makers, scholarly societies often harness disciplinary knowledge to take public stands on questions of contemporary law and policy. For a broad view of how scholarly societies weigh in on policy issues, take a look at our essay on Scholarly Societies and the Public Humanities. With the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision, here we highlight examples of the ways scholarly societies have harnessed their disciplinary expertise before and after the ruling.
In September 2021, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the American Historical Association (AHA) submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on decades of study and research by professional historians and endorsed by 29 other historical and scholarly organizations, the brief aimed to provide an accurate historical perspective as the Court considered the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case.
Also in September 2021, the American Society for Legal History and historians and academics with expertise in the law, history, and politics of reproduction in the United States submitted an amicus curiae brief that seeks to clarify the historical record regarding the claim by Mississippi that Roe v. Wade drove the division and polarization around abortion, which the brief argues is historically inaccurate.
Subsequent to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, the AHA and the OAH issued a statement that engages the decision itself that many of the history-oriented scholarly societies joined.
The National Women's Studies Association released a statement concerning the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Signs Journal, the leading international journal in women's studies, is offering free access to their archive on reproductive rights until November 2022.
Publication and Project News
Recently on the Humanities for All blog:
In “Bringing Public Humanities to Asian American Studies,” Tamara Bhalla, an associate professor in the American Studies department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, shared her experience integrating public humanities and museum studies into an upper-level course on Asian American studies. While faced with many challenges, including the pandemic, Bhalla “found that the public humanities components of the course, perhaps more than any other element, had the potential to show students how to put the course’s concepts into practice and to see Asian American studies as a living, breathing practice of knowledge production and sharing.”
“Documenting Impact: Public Humanities Lab at Middlebury College” is a new blog post from National Humanities Alliance research associate Younger Oliver that shares results from the NHA’s impact research partnership with the Axinn Center for the Humanities at Middlebury College. The post highlights three patterns that emerged from the data that can help us broadly understand how integrating public humanities work into undergraduate classrooms can be an essential tool for bolstering interest in the humanities, enhancing pedagogy on the college campus, and engaging community in mutually beneficial ways.
Monument Lab Field Trip: Museums is a set of free and downloadable self-guided activities designed to help you investigate museums and explore the histories and stories that they reveal (and hide). The guide encourages you to reflect on questions of learning, labor, and access in arts, culture, history, and science institutions, and to propose your own ideas for making museums more accessible and less exclusive spaces. Monument Lab Field Trip: Museums invites you to critically explore museums with your family, friends, classmates, and neighbors in a way that feels safe and accessible for you, whether in-person or online.
The City is an Ecosystem: Sustainable Education, Policy, and Practice is a new coedited Routledge, Taylor and Francis volume by Deborah Mutnick, Margaret Cuonzo, Carole Griffiths, Timothy Leslie, and Jay M. Shuttleworth. The work maps an interdisciplinary, community-engaged response to the great ecological crises of our time—climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality—which pose particular challenges for cities, where more than half the world’s population currently live.
“LGBTQ Community Archives in Small Urban Centers: Reflections on Community and University Partnerships to Build Awareness of the Lehigh Valley’s Rich LGBTQ History from AIDS Activism to Anti-Discrimination Legislation” is a new article in The European Journal of American Studies by Mary Foltz, Susan Falciani Maldonado, Kristen Leipert, Rachel Hamelers, and Adrian Shanker. The article addresses how community center leaders, archivists, faculty, and students in Allentown, Pennsylvania have collaborated to meet the needs of LGBTQ communities in small urban centers by discussing three impactful archival projects: F.A.C.T. (Fighting AIDS Continuously Together) public history courses, an exhibit titled “Pride Guides and the Early Years of Lehigh Valley Pride Festivals,” and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project.
“Storylistening: a case study in how to include the humanities in evidence provided for public reasoning” is a new article in the Journal of the British Academy by Sarah Dillon and Claire Craig that details the use value for storylistening methodologies. Storylistening provides a framework for the theory and practice of gathering narrative evidence to inform decision-making, especially in relation to public reasoning, as part of a pluralistic evidence base. By describing how to put storylistening into practice, this commentary highlights how the humanities and advisory structures need to evolve, with implications for narrative studies and for the public humanities more broadly.
“[Re]Constructing Lost Realities, Possible Worlds and Future Perspectives Through Digital and Public Humanities” is an introductory paper in a new volume of Magazén: International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities by Franz Fischer, Diego Mantoan, and Barbara Tramelli. The paper explores the continuing work and themes housed within Magazen, the interdisciplinary journal of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) based at the Department of Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
“Shared Work: William & Mary’s Highland and The Lemon Project” is a new National Council on Public History History@Work blog post by Maria Dibenigno and Jajuan Johnson detailing the public humanities work of the College of William and Mary’s Mellon Foundation-funded grant, Sharing Authority to Remember and Re-Interpret the Past. This five-year, pan-university initiative examines the legacies of enslavement and racial inequity in Virginia.
“Public Humanities EcoGothic at the Coast in Ireland and Wales” is a new article by Claire Connolly, James Louis Smith, and Rita Singer in Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic. This paper explores the Gothic resonances that cross the Irish Sea and some of the conundrums of expressing this material through digital and stakeholder-based public history activities. The case studies of this essay originate from the collection of the Ports, Past and Present project, an initiative funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales Cooperation program.
“Humanities at the center: Insights from building a public humanities program” is a new article by Molly Hiro and Jen McDaneld in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education. The essay uses the experience of building a new public humanities program at the University of Portland to explore approaches for revitalizing the field.
Making Black Public Humanities in South Florida: Fugitive Pedagogies, Self-Making, and Memory Work is a new dissertation by William Garcia-Medina that seeks to make a contribution to the field of Black public humanities by examining the history and achievements of the African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Garcia-Medina argues that a project like this could serve as a preliminary litmus test by Black public humanities educators and administrators to determine the extent to which their centers are exemplary and inclusive.
"Listening to Fire Knowledges in and around the Okanagan valley” is a new public humanities podcast by Judith Burr that explores the ways that fire history informs present and future ways of living with and understanding fire in and around the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Conducted as part of her Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies program's Digital Arts & Humanities track at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, the podcast centers 14 oral histories and expert interviews discussing the region’s community and environmental history.
Employment and Funding Opportunities
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is hiring a Museum Specialist to assist in working on U.S. Latinx initiatives, programs, and projects. In this position, the Museum Specialist will assist staff with research, collections development (including acquisitions, documentation, and management), exhibition development, public service, and programming centered on the U.S. Latinx experience, which includes U.S. Afro-Latinx people, art, history, and culture. Apply by August 12, 2022.
The HistoryMakers, a national not-for-profit video oral history archive headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, seeks to hire an experienced, full-time oral historian with extensive knowledge of the African American life, history, and culture to conduct 3–5 hour videotaped interviews of African Americans across a variety of disciplines (e.g., arts, law, business, religion, STEM, the military, sports, etc.) as part of The HistoryMakers’ national, interactive archive. Apply by August 29, 2022.
The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) seeks an Oral History Program Manager. This position will 1) establish and lead the Oral History Program at MNHS; 2) work with colleagues across MNHS to promote access to and engagement with the MNHS Oral History Program; 3) represent MNHS broadly, including as a member of professional organizations and contribute to the advancement of the field of oral history locally and nationally; 4) collaborate across MNHS to advance MNHS strategic plan objectives, including contributing to MNHS’s commitment to sharing Minnesota history through community engagement and partnerships; and 5) Provide management oversight to unit staff. Apply by September 30, 2022.
As part of an Anti-Racism Faculty Hiring Initiative, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor invites applications for a tenure-track advanced assistant or beginning associate professor in Black Urban Studies/Urban Humanities with particular emphasis in Black culture and the urban environment and a strong commitment to community-engaged learning. Although prior engagement with Detroit is not a requirement, UM hopes that the successful candidate will want to build partnerships with communities in Detroit as an integral part of their teaching and research. Apply by October 7, 2022 for full consideration.
The Georgia Historical Society seeks an individual for the role of Historical Marker and Program Coordinator. The coordinator will work with the Marker Manager to implement GHS historical marker programs, with particular focus on the statewide marker maintenance program, and assisting with Communications division activities. In addition, this position will assist with public programs and events which fall under the Programs division of the Georgia Historical Society.
Yale University Press is seeking an editor to acquire and commission 12–15 books per year in the humanities, with an emphasis on works that elevate diverse voices both within and outside of academia. A key aspect of the position will be a lead role in the development of Yale’s Black Lives series, which publishes accessible biographies of leading and overlooked Black figures through history and is advised by a team of notable scholars. This editor will also take over responsibility and oversight for the Yale Drama Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the oldest annual literary award in the United States.
The John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) at Duke University seeks an Assistant Director of Communications to play a vital role in explaining the value of the humanities in interpreting the human experience, making sense of our world and enriching our lives, and to making the FHI’s work broadly accessible to public and campus audiences. This position has principal responsibility for planning and implementing strategic communications in support of the FHI that align with and amplify the university’s strategic priorities.
The Folger Shakespeare Library seeks a dynamic and inventive scholar-leader to serve as the next Director of the Folger Institute. The Institute is committed to a vision of scholarship, specifically the study of early modern humanities, as an engine for intellectual and social impact in the twenty-first century.
As always, check out the latest postings on the job boards for the National Council on Public History and the American Association for State and Local History, which provide lists of opportunities that might be of interest to those trained in the public humanities.
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